Defensive Abilities

Dämonenstachel: This ability can hold 2 charges and reduces Physical damage taken and increasing Parry chance by 20%.

Flammendes Brandmal: This causes the enemy to deal less damage to you and increase the amount of Fire damage you deal to the target while active.

Metamorphose: This is your big cooldown that should be used when at risk of dying. It increases your current and max HP by 30%, and generates 7 pain per second. This allows much more frequent use of Seelenspalter, overall increasing healing done significantly, especially when talented into Seelenreißer. Note that this does not pandemic with Verzweiflungstat , but instead overwrites the buff. So it is not advisable too use one during the other. Procs of Von Schmerz getrieben however do add an additional 5 seconds too the buff. Additionally, this doubles as an offensive cooldown, as Seelenspalter deals a lot of damage.

Utility Abilities

Magie aufzehren: This is your interrupt. You should use it whenever possible, as it generates a large amount of pain (50).

Zeichen der Stille: This is an AoE silence, and should be used when it's important to keep mobs from casting, or when you want to move a group of mobs that cast spells

Zeichen des Elends: This is an AoE disorient that will crowd control mobs caught in it for 30 seconds. Damage will break the effect. Due too it disorienting enemies, it acts as a pseudo interrupt by stopping their current cast, and they cannot cast again until they have been broken from their disorient. Note this only works on disorient-able targets.

Einkerkern: This is a 1 minute crowd control that affects demons, beasts or humanoids.

Passive Abilities

Dämonischer Schutz: Reduces ALL damage taken by 20%. This includes both Magical and Physical. Increases Stamina by 55% and increases Armor by 75%.

Active Mitigation

Dämonenstachel is your active mitigation. It costs 20 pain, and reduces physical damage during its duration while also increasing parry chance. Ideally, you should aim to have at least 40% uptime on this ability during a raid encounter. (Assuming you have no haste and aren't taking any additional talents/tier) This benefits from Mastery at 0.75 times as much as normal. You will have a minimum of 16% Damage Reduction before any Mastery from gear/buffs.

Rotation/Priority List

Single Target

Use on cooldown to generate soul fragments and to maximize dpsWhen above 70 pain, use for healing or to avoid wasting resources (when not taking Fracture)(If using ) See belowUse on cooldown(If using ) Cast on cooldown(If using ) Cast on cooldownUse on Cooldown(If using ) Weave casts of with (described below) Fill empty globals with

AoE rotation (2+ targets)

Use on cooldown to generate soul fragments and to maximize dpsWhen above 70 pain, use for healing or to avoid wasting resources (when not taking Fracture)(If using ) See belowUse on cooldown(If using ) Cast on cooldown(If using ) Cast on cooldownUse on Cooldown(If using ) Weave casts of with (described below) Fill empty globals with

Survival Priority

Our survivability priority revolves heavily around soul management. You need to run Fracture for 95% of survival cases as we need it to spawn souls. The simplest way of doing it is by using Demon Spikes only when you need a physical damage reduction, instead of for Razor Spikes (yes I recommend against Razor Spikes for newer players). With Auto Consume, spawning extra souls causes you to consume old ones, with Fracture constantly spawning them, you will constantly be getting small trickle healing and painbringer stacks. This means you need to cast it roughly every 3 seconds. If you are running Spirit Bomb, you will cast it to keep up the buff. If you use Soul Carver on cooldown, you can easily use spirit bomb to consume souls then Soul Carver to get up to 5 souls quickly. With Spirit Bomb being every 20 seconds and Soul Carver being 40, you can do this every other Spirit Bomb.

As far as healing goes, if you NEED a heal asap, Soul Cleave is still viable for this. Ideally you would cast it when you have 0 souls up. If you have souls up, a 5 soul Spirit Bomb leechs for 35% of its damage, so each target it hits essentially heals you for a 25 pain Soul Cleave. So at 2 targets, a 5 soul Spirit Bomb is the same as a 50 pain Soul Cleave, and this scales with every target. While you can do this for the healing, it isn't significant, so you will often be better just continuing your Fracture rotation and reducing overall damage taken and making your health as smooth as possible.

TLDR;Spend pain only on Demon Spikes and FractureYou WANT to overcap souls for Auto ConsumeHeal with Soul Cleave/Spirit Bomb only for emergency healing.

Additional notes about priority

Fracture

Fracture provides us with both damage and survivability. This is primarily through the soul fragments it spawns. For DPS you'll use Fracture in conjunction with Spirit Bomb. Fracture to spawn the souls, Spirit bomb to blow them up. Ideally you don't want to waste any souls (i.e. going over the 5 cap).

Spirit Bomb

There are 2 ways of playing Spirit Bomb. Defensively it is simply used to apply Frailty to the target. All you care about is keeping the debuff up on the enemy. It pandemics up to 25 seconds, so you can refresh with less than 5 seconds left, without worrying about wasting time or resources. The secondary playstyle is to be offensive. You want to spam as many souls into the enemies as possible, while hitting as many enemies as possible. The idea of how to play this is to spawn as many souls as fast as possible and to capitalize on soul gain without over spawning souls. Note that you cannot use souls until they land, so there is a slight delay in soul usage. The soul fragment buff tracker (what most Weak Auras track) has a delay. There is a period from when the soul spawns, to when it lands (being usable) to when the buff tracker updates. So you will have a delay.The "priority list looks like

1. Immolation as priority, because it spawns souls immediately2. Soul Carver so that its on cd asap3. Sever (meta shear) as long as you don't pain cap4. Fracture if the rest are unavailable or you are pain capped

Soul Fragments

We have two kinds of Soul Fragments. Lesser and Greater. Greater Soul Fragments come from killing enemies. This must be a last hit, meaning you did the last damage to kill them. This can go above the soul fragment cap. Lesser Soul Fragments are spawned from Shear/Fracture/Soul Carver and Fallout. We have a 5 Lesser Soul Fragment cap. If you go above this cap, then you are simply replacing old souls with new ones. Meaning if you have 5, then cast fracture, 2 old ones disappear and 2 new ones appear. Fallout is the only exception to this rule. It can spawn up to 5 souls at once. However, if you already have souls out, and you use Immolation Aura with Fallout, you can get up to 10 Lesser Soul Fragments. So if you see your buff say 6+ souls then it means that you hit the 5 and either A) killed something and got a Greater Soul, or B) you are using Fallout and casted Immolation Aura. Note that you cannot use souls until they land, so there is a slight delay in soul usage. The soul fragment buff tracker (what most Weak Auras track) has a delay. There is a period from when the soul spawns, to when it lands (being usable) to when the buff tracker updates. So you will have a delay.

Soul Cleave

When to use Seelenspalter: Seelenspalter uses a variable amount of pain, ranging from 25 to 50 pain. If possible, it is ideal to only use it when you have 70 pain of more. However, if urgent healing is required, it is sometimes useful too use Seelenspalter before hitting 60 pain. Though using defensives and cd's are higher priority due to the lack of healing from Seelenspalter without full pain and souls. When running Spirit Bomb, you will only use this for the heal on it. This will be when you have no souls. You can do something like Spirit Bomb > Soul Cleave to maximize your immediate healing. However in general it is better to use Fracture for pain for either Auto Consume or Spirit Bomb.

Fiery Brand

When to use Flammendes Brandmal: Flammendes Brandmal is off the Global Cooldown and deals a large amount of damage to your target, as well as applying a 40% damage reduction. Its usage is variable. If the target has choreographed, high damage phases, it should be used during those times. If the encounter does not, it should be used to bridge a gap in active mitigation. If you feel comfortable with your damage intake and don't need this, it should be used on cooldown.

Fiery Demise

When you aquire the Flammender Untergang Artifact trait, you can slightly change up your rotation too have a slight burst in dps once a minute. (note this does not work with Lebendig verbrannt)1. Use Zeichen der Flamme with no less than 8 seconds left. (due too casting/exploding of the Sigil, plus the full duration of it)2. Use Feuerbrandaura with no less than 6 seconds left. (due too the 6 sec duration on the buff/damage)3. Use Dämonische Verwüstung with no less than 2 seconds left. (due too the 2 sec channel)4. Do not save Seelenschnitzer for this every minute. It is best too use Seelenschnitzer on cooldown, though if the cd of both are close, it is worth saving Seelenschnitzer5. Cast Immolation Aura IMMEDIATELY after pressing Fiery Brand, so that you can get it off cooldown asap to cast it again and maximize your Fiery Brand uptime/damage.6. Hold Soul Carver for a second or two, as with the Flaming Soul Trait, you can extend the duration of Fiery Brand, but you cant put the timer past 10, so if you have 9.5 seconds left and you hit immo/soul carver, it'll go up to 10 seconds and you can easily waste uptime.

Infernal Strike

Using Infernoeinschlag in combat: Infernoeinschlag is off the global cooldown, and deals damage on impact. It should be used on cooldown as much as possible, though charges should be saved if movement is required.

Razor Spikes

If running Klingenstacheln,, it is best to pool your pain before casting Dämonenstachel. What this means is to get as close to 100 pain without capping as possible. Ideally you would hit 100 pain and press Dämonenstachel, then follow up with a Fraktur spam for ST, or Seelenspalter into 3 Abscheren then Seelenspalter for AoE. In order to maximize the amount of physical damage abilities you pump into the enemy during this time. Ideally you would want to cast your non physical abilities outside of this 6 second window. You can still use Infernoeinschlag as it is off the global cooldown. While not actively tanking, i.e. the other tank has the boss. You would still do the same. How you use this ability offensively strongly relies on your ability as a player as well as on a per fight basis in conjunction with your group. There isn’t a 100% always right way, as it will fluctuate based on your situation.If running Physical abilities include: Abscheren, Seelenspalter, and Fraktur.

Soul Barrier

Soul Barriers use is fairly simple. Use it on cooldown and prepare souls before hand for it. If using Fracture, you would pool 5 souls then cast Soul Barrier. If you are using Fallout and/or Soul Carver is up. You should get souls from Shear/Fracture first, then Soul Barrier, then cast Immolation aura/Soul Carver to generate more souls. These extra souls will still give you the shielding once you consume them, as long as the Soul Barrier buff is up. Also you will still get the effects from the souls, this includes Painbringer, Healing, and Fueled by Pain.